ISG Closure Report

Project Summary

The Purpose of the project was to provide change management expertise that supports the launch of P&M Phase 2 for Estates.

New system roles were identified by P&M, these roles required staff to be allocated to them and trained in their function. The scope of the project covered weekly communications keeping the staff group up to date with progress and preparing the group for the system closedown period. 

All of the project goals were achieved, in full. The success criteria that was noted in the project brief was as follows:

• Estates leaders are actioning Job changes.
• Time Keepers are performing their role.
• All staff have been informed how to access their payslips.
• All absence recording is being actioned in P&M

How these objectives and deliverables were achieved is detailed in the next section.

As a project manager, this has been a lovely project to manage and feed back from the project sponsor is much appreciated A really successful project, delivered through a brilliant partnership approach between ISG and Estates. Marjory has done an excellent job in identifying, tracking, managing and delivering all the activities required for the successful adoption of Phase 2 P&M within Estates. A great example of how ISG and Estates can work together to deliver a required outcome." Zoe Stephens

Objectives and Deliverables Achieved

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 56 days 

Staff Usage Actual: 57 days 

Staff Usage Variance: 1 days ( within tolerance)

No other chargeable resources were used.

Other Resource Estimate: Nil

Other Resource Actual: Nil

Other Resource Variance: N/A days

Explanation for variance

The increase in effort has been a culmination of the addition of scope and delays with deliverables from P&M (eg Training videos) and some task taking longer than initially anticipated. This was because the tasks required more effort or there was a lack of clarity from P&M which required more resource to resolve outstanding questions. Some items delivered by P&M did not fit the business need and required additional project manager support to resolve. Notable items in this group are: 

• The new bulk upload process
• Work schedules for staff who work non standard hours (maintenance and central Library staff )
• Timekeeper roles, a full understanding of this role was only evident through the training process, where it was noted that more timekeepers would be needed in some areas.
• Payment of flat overtime fees and the TAP form (temporary additional payments form)

It would have been very difficult for EST140 to have predicted this additional effort. The AS IS gathering on the P&M side was not very detailed, resulting in gaps that required additional effort to resolve them. The sharing of information to the business areas, arrived very close to the go -live date, again there was no room to seek pre-launch solutions. Additional scope is noted on the project plan on lines 156-165 2. EST140 Phase 2 Launch DRAFT PLAN.mpp

Outcome

The outcome of the project is that P&M Phase 2  has landed well in Estates.

There is a high uptake of P&M for absence recording. System roles were filled and the staff trained on their function. The leadership team were kept well informed and involved at the appropriate level and time, with the working group picking up much of the work load.

The delivery programme from P&M Phase 2 did not include a business alignment phase, this meant that the business areas had no opportunity to revise processes or prepare staff for the new ways of working. The Estates staff group is an extremely large staff group, comprising of just short of 1000 staff.  What can often happen as a consequence of this approach, is increased stress levels on the staff group, which can manifest as resistance to change. This was avoided through detailed communication and support that was managed from the project team.  The successful delivery of P&M Phase 2, will provide the Estates staff group with confidence for the launch of P&M Phase 3.

Key Learning Points

A short lessons learned session was incorporated into the last of the Local Guides meetings. The output from this session is recorded here: Lessons Learned Log | Project Management

Outstanding issues

The remaining items outstanding will be transferred to BAU ownership with Stacey Maxwell.

Three handover sessions have taken place with Stacey and Stacey has full access to the project files on SharePoint and the EST140 OneNote. Zoe, the project Sponsor, attended the last of the handover sessions.

The items handed over to Stacey are summarised below and are noted in full in the handover section of the OneNote, for confidentiality, staff names have been removed other than that of the local guides for this report.